Mining the Market

B-to-b publishing can drill down into some incredibly arcane topics, but great opportunities lie in edifying those topics for your audience. Summit Business Media’s National Underwriter has realized a potential $400,000 business over the confusion regarding life settlements in the insurance industry, according to vice president and group publisher Tom Fowler.

Inspired by one industry expert remarking that even he didn’t really understand life settlements, National Underwriter developed a series of roundtables and roundtable supplements around the topic, with National Underwriter editors serving as moderators. "There were lots of fireworks but we were able to hash out the pro’s and cons of life settlements," says Fowler. The roundtables also generated $125,000 last year.

In 2007, National Underwriter will host three life settlement roundtables and will launch a life settlements newsletter in April, which it hopes will generate $120,000 in revenue per month, according to Fowler. "We’ve created a potential $400,000 business from an off-the-cuff comment," he adds. "It fits our model very well."

Elsewhere, Summit is about to launch the Futures Virtual Trade Show, inspired by Futures magazine, which targets amateur traders. The 60,000 Futures circulation file experiences constant turnover (depending on the fortunes of its readers). "Many of these people don’t have the time or the money to attend a conference for training," Fowler says.The virtual trade show will feature sponsors and exhibit booths, and had more than 500 people signed up at presstime.